Blog Posts: Broadband

Comcast Keeps Capping

Jenn Ettinger

May 18, 2012

On Thursday, Comcast announced plans to raise its data caps from 250 GB per month to 300 GB in some areas.

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Community Broadband Kicks Comcast to the Curb

Josh Levy

May 17, 2012

True or false: The fastest broadband connections in the country come from Comcast, Time Warner Cable and other big telecom companies.

The answer: A big, fat FALSE. A new report from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) shows that local governments build the fastest, most innovative broadband networks in the country.

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Ben Franklin Is Rolling in His Grave

Josh Levy

April 27, 2012

Yesterday the House rushed through a vote on CISPA — the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act.

CISPA supporters in the House were so rattled by mounting opposition to their creepy bill — more than 1 million people told them to ditch it — that they passed the legislation before our outcry could spread.

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ALEC Wants You To Pay 750 Percent More For High-Speed Internet

Zaid Jilani,

April 20, 2012

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is the most powerful corporate front group you’ve never heard of. Drawing the vast majority of its financing from big corporations, the group allows these firms to help write bills that it then secretly passes off to state legislators to get turned into laws.

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Big Brother Is Not Your 'Friend'

Tim Karr

April 16, 2012

The U.S. government has increasingly shown an intense desire to “friend” you, to “follow” you, to get to know your every online move.

Now members of the House of Representatives are channeling that desire into legislation that clears a path for authorities to work with companies like AT&T, Facebook and Google to snoop on Internet-using Americans.

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Stop the Online Spying Bill

Josh Levy

April 12, 2012

Want to give the federal government and big companies new powers to spy on you?

You’re in luck: There's a bill for that.

It's called CISPA — the "Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act" — and it's a frightening piece of legislation. It could allow for a new online spying regime, letting Big Brother read, watch and listen to everything we do on the Internet.

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Hey America! We're #16

Josh Levy

April 3, 2012

Q: Do you live in America?

If you answered “yes,” you can proceed directly to the “You live in a country ranked 16th in the world in broadband penetration, speed and price” section below.

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Stop Verizon's Backroom Deal

Josh Levy

March 19, 2012

Your cable and wireless companies are getting into bed together.

Verizon has struck a sweetheart deal with a cartel of cable companies — including Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Cox Communications — in which they’ve agreed to stop competing against one another. The new plan? To divvy up the spoils of the growing mobile market.

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Mutant Broadband Bills Are Infecting Our Communities

Josh Levy

February 22, 2012

Should communities have a right to decide how residents get online? It sounds like a simple question. It isn’t.

The notion of self-determination is fundamental to our self-identify, our politics and the way we construct our communities. And while we all have different interpretations of what “the right to self-determination” means, most of us can agree that it’s a bad thing when governments try to take it away.

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Verizon's Deal with Big Cable Spells the Demise of the Telecom Act

Joel Kelsey

January 5, 2012

We all remember the 1980's and its awesome fashion and music. While some may want to revisit those aspects of the past, I don't think anyone wants to return to the era of the cable and Ma Bell monopolies.

Opening up communications markets was the purpose of the 1996 Telecommunications Act. The Act was designed to help phone companies get into the pay-TV business, and cable companies get into the phone business. Yet after a series of regulatory blunders, this promise of increased competition and lower prices has become a distant memory, like 7-Up Gold. And the situation is only getting worse.

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